Oh, What a Spectacle!
by Shock Factor
Summary: A simple innocent query by everyone's favorite heroine leads to a frenzy for fashionable eyewear. Contains hijinks, serious romantic tension, Nora's extremely active imagination, pop culture references out of the wazoo, and gratuitous one-up(wo)manship. White Rose, Bumbleby, Arkos, and ReNora. Prompt given by GlassedGamer.
1. Blurry

Oh, What a Spectacle!

Chapter 1

Blurry (Prologue)

Lunch at Beacon Academy was proceeding as usual, with not a single thing amiss. Birds were singing, the sun was shining, students were socializing, and Jaune had just gotten his figurative emotional salad punched by Cardin for the umpteenth time. Despite many offers of breaking legs from Nora, a comforting hand on the shoulder (as well as surprisingly and disturbingly vivid fantasies of punching groins, pulling teeth, and breaking noses) from Pyrrha Nikos, and emotional support from Team RWBY and Ren, Jaune was content to shrug it off in the usual manner. Of course, this did not sit well with our adorably precocious young heroine, Ruby Rose, who was determined to steer the group towards happy thoughts, banishing such depressing (and downright vicious) thoughts from their minds.

The question remained... what would she do? She had exhausted most usual avenues of conversation before Jaune joined them at the table, from the recent Grimm Studies test which all of them, save for classic overachiever Weiss and ultra bookworm Blake, had utterly bombed. She was pretty sure they were all tired of hearing about her 'bodying skills' at Ultimate Brawl Four, and really, who wanted to hear about that time that she walked in on Weiss trying to sing in the mirror?

So, she had to come up with an unusual question that would stimulate thought. Something interesting...

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Goodwitch sitting at the far table, watching all of the students from behind her glasses.

' _Light bulb!_ '

Ruby took a breath, and threw out her idea.

"Can you guys see me with glasses?"

Her friends all gave her an odd look, before studying her, trying to cop a visual of their favorite little rascal in a pair of bifocals.

"Nope!" Nora said, popping the 'p'. "Don't see it."

"I agree with Nora, it would be... unbecoming of you."

"What's that supposed to mean, Weiss?" Ruby asked, indignant.

"Glasses are... well... they're something you associate with sophistication, intellect, and class."

Jaune's mental gears were suddenly grinding at full speed, driving like mad attempting to come up with some scheme to look sophisticated, intellectual, and classy. And it now most definitely required some nice frames.

"And?" Ruby asked, leaning over, attempting to understand what she was getting at. Yang leaned over her sister, giving Weiss a glare that informed her that her next words would decide if she got to keep her hair in that nice and pristine condition.

"Uh... I just don't think it would look right on you."

"Oh..."

Yang's glare dissipated, replaced with a big, boisterous smile. "I, for one, think my sis would look adorable with glasses!"

"It kind of depends on what kind, really," Ren said, thinking. "Your hair color, your face shape, and your personality are all things you have to take into consideration when you purchase glasses."

"And Ren should know, he used to have some!" Nora added. "They were long and boxy and SUPER shiny and he looked like a nerd! But a really cool nerd!"

"I'm glad you liked them, but I'm afraid my farsightedness is far easier to correct with contact lenses. Plus, cleaning them was tedious..."

Ruby thought about it for a moment, and had one of her few good ideas. "Ooh! I have an idea!"

"Shoot," Pyrrha said, genuinely curious, although a bit worried about what might come out of the little ball of fire's mouth.

"I'll get some glasses and start wearing them. Then we'll see if I look cool!"

"Seems legit," Jaune said, poking at the food on his tray.

"Sounds fine by me," Blake said, face buried in a book (She silently thanked whatever gods existed that she had found a way to cut open pages in order to hide a smaller book on the internet, ensuring that she never had to put down a new edition of Ninjas of Love due to heading out in public. She would not rest until she found out which of his harem the main character was going to choose).

"Alright! I'll have new glasses by tomorrow!" Ruby said, smiling.

* * *

That evening, after he and Pyrrha finished their daily spar, Jaune Arc was a man on a mother fucking mission. He was going to find a bomb set of specs, so help him Oum, and nothing would be able to stop him from doing it. Only an act of the almighties themselves would stop his righteous crusade.

Okay, that was a little grandiose...

Really, it was just another case of his glaring lack of self confidence. Weiss had said she associated glasses with 'sophistication, intellect, and class.' He liked to think he had at least a few of those things, and Oum knows he wanted nothing more than for her to at least think somewhat positively of him.

So, here he was, after class, looking up glasses frames on his Scroll. When he should be studying for his Geography test. Which he would probably forget to do. As usual. His team were all sitting around him, none of them seeming to question what exactly he was doing.

"So, Pyrrha, I can understand why I failed that exam, but how did you? You're like, a study GOD!" Nora inquired, throwing her arms out to emphasize 'God'.

"She would be a 'Goddess', Nora," Ren gently corrected her.

"To-may-to, To-mah-to!" Nora jibed, blowing a raspberry at her partner, before booping him on the nose. "Boop!"

Pyrrha rolled her eyes. "I was up all night," she admitted. "I didn't get to sleep until early this morning, and I didn't wake up until thirty minutes after class started..."

"What kept you up, Pyr?" Jaune asked, looking up from his Scroll.

"The munchies? Questioning the meaning of life? WONDERING WHAT THE SLOTH SOUNDS LIKE?" Nora guessed.

"I think you're the only person on Remnant that asks that question, Nora," Ren says, although a smile was tugging at his lips. Nora made some kind of odd sound halfway between a monkey and an Ursa, with a weird chirp for good measure, causing Pyrrha to flinch at the one woman audio cataclysm. "But seriously, what kept you up, Pyrrha?"

"I wa-" Pyrrha stopped, looking off to the side. "... Nothing. I just wasn't tired." She threw a look at Ren, who nodded, with a small frown. Nora attempted to figure out what was being said, but the little amount of energy her brain was not spending on imagining jumping Ren and taking his card right then and there, forcing Pyrrha to do likewise with everyone's favorite noodle, questioning the subtle nuances of the human psyche, or wondering exactly WHAT THE FUCK A SLOTH SOUNDS LIKE was far too little to comprehend such a loaded and well-hidden non-verbal message. Jaune remained in his usual, oblivious state, he couldn't possibly understand what in the one, two, red or blue hells what was going on. He had finally found what kind of glasses he was looking for, and he tapped the screen.

' _TWO HUNDRED LIEN!?'_ He inwardly screamed, staring at the figure underneath the glasses. It counted sales tax already, but still! Such a steep price for a chance at a date that may or may not even work out. Unfortunately for Jaune's savings fund, hormones won the day, and it was now 200 lien the poorer. The glasses would be ready tomorrow, and he would go and pick them up at the store.

"Jaune, is something wrong?" Pyrrha asked, tilting her head at her team leader. He seemed awful engrossed in his scroll.

"No, I'm good. Just shopping."

Somewhere, deep in her heart, Pyrrha hoped against hope that he was buying something for her, unlikely as that may be. "Anything in particular?"

"No, just browsing around."

"Oh... okay."

* * *

"Yaaaaaaaaang..."

Ruby was curled up in a tiny ball on her bed, groaning in agony at having made a decision she just now started to regret. She never realized that glasses were the territory of nerds until after ruminating on the matter for a while. Not even necessarily cute nerds, like Weiss! Just nerds in general! Ruby wouldn't make a cute nerd!

Yang sat down next to her sister, sighing. "Rubes, you don't have to go through with this if you don't want to. It's just a thing you said among friends, no one's gonna hold you to it like you made a blood oath!"

Ruby sat up, somehow still holding her ball form.

"I'm scared I'm gonna look stupid."

Yang scoffed, indignant at the sheer audacity of such a statement. Her little Ruby? Look stupid? Like fucking HELL!

"Honey, you will look many things, but you will NOT look stupid. Leave it to your big sis to ensure that!"

"But, still, what if the others think it looks nerdy?"

Yang sighed, exasperated at her sister's lack of confidence when it came to her peers. Sure, she was a bubbly bundle of sugar and fire in public, but she always worried about what her friends thought of her behind closed doors. Luckily, she had Qrow and Taiyang to keep her from falling in with a crowd that could pressure her into actions she would regret, but it was still sort of upsetting to the blonde. After giving it a moment of thought, Yang decided that, just this one time, she would sacrifice her sex appeal on the altar of familial love.

But Ruby was gonna owe her for this if it backfired.

"... would it make you feel better if I wore a pair, too?"

"Yang, you don't have to-"

Yang stopped her with a palm to the face, assuming an almost saintly pose as she proceeded to outline the basic premise of her selfless plan of action, which was certainly not motivated by the fact that, should all else fail, she would at least get paid back.

"Ah, of course! I would LOVE to buy us some glasses in order to help you boost your self confidence and make you look better in comparison, since I'm such a GREAT and LOVING elder sibling!"

"Yang, I never-"

Yang put her smaller sister in a headlock, grinning ear to ear. "Shush, Ruby! You don't need to thank me, its what I do! Uncle Qrow can live with slightly less alcohol, anyway!"

"Yang you need to- Wait... You're going to use THAT money?"

"Did you really think I was gonna waste my allowance on this, Rubes? Or my credit card? Have you lost your mind? Come on, we're going shopping!"

Oh, Ruby knew DAMN well what they meant by shopping. She doubted they'd be home by nightfall.

* * *

The eyeglasses store, 'Four Seasons Vision and Care', was relatively empty, save for a woman in a white coat, and a guy at the register. They had a slow shift so far, considering that it was a Wednesday. The doorbell rang as someone walked in, and the guy put on his best 'buy some really expensive shit because I'm really fucking nice to you' smile, and looked up at the incoming customer. "Good evening, anything you-"

The blonde flipped her hair as she walked through the doors, swaying her hips in time to the elevator music he had assumed couldn't possibly have any possible effect on anyone.

God. DAYUM.

While he tried to keep his composure somewhere between 'oh my god please don't leave I'm lonely and I have no life' and 'Please buy nice things so I can indirectly complement you and possibly passive-aggressively ask you for your phone number,' he did have to assist the customer. He retried. "Anything in particular you're looking for today?"

The blonde turned to face him, lilac eyes meeting his as the little, pale girl beside her looked around at all the frames. "Yeah, actually. I'm looking for glasses for me and my sister."

"Corrective or Cosmetic?"

"Cosmetic," she replied.

"Alright, can you give me a ballpark of what you're looking for?"

"I'm looking for something smart-looking. You know, big, thick, cute?"

"Okay, follow me."

He led them to a display, running his hand past the display, pointing at the individual frames and running through ideas in his head. "How about these?" He takes off a large, thick rimmed and round pair, which Yang took a hold of, and haphazardly slung over the bridge of her nose. "Rubes, what do you think?"

Ruby looked up at her older sister, humming in thought. "Um... Yeah, I like it!"

The glasses guy respectfully held his peace to avoid opening his mouth, and possibly drooling on the floor. He looked over at the smaller girl. "W-what about you?"

"She wants something HAWT!" Yang says, throwing her arm around the Ruby. "Ain't that right?"

The girl looks at him as if she expects me to help her. He suddenly had a feeling that this was going to be very, very, painful...

 **This story is a prompt from GlassedGamer, who is officially a certified G for giving me a shot in the arm writing wise. This is probably the only prompt I'll do for him, but any writers who look at this should take a look at his profile and pick up a prompt!**

 **Also, I'm staring at the RWBY TvTropes character page to make absolutely, positively sure that I'm characterizing everyone 100 percent accurately.** **And trust me, I know glasses. I work at a spec store in the mall.**

 **All the women's glasses in this story are based on a real life line called Fetch Eyewear, a women's (despite what the website tells you) line which is extremely popular in my neck of the woods. The two boys are both going to rock designer frames, because that's the thing for guys now (Ralph Lauren, PLR, Armani, etc. Expensive, but nice.) I'll be posting exactly what they are for anyone who wants a visual.**

 **Ruby: Alex Noir- can't go wrong with the classics.  
Yang: Tracy Onyx- big frames are adorable and dorky. Adorkable?** **  
**

 **Jaune: Armani Exchange AX1017 Tan- the current rich kid fashion.**


	2. Catching Your Eye

Oh, What a Spectacle!

Chapter 2

Catching Your Eye

Ruby Rose came here to find some glasses and have a good time, and honestly, she felt so attacked right now.

Her sister was browbeating this poor sales guy for not having the kind of glasses Yang thought would be best for her younger sister. Occasionally, Ruby would attempt to interrupt her and point at a pair she liked, but it was a complete waste of effort. Yang would have perfection, or she would have nothing of all. So, poor widdle Wuby was left, holding a pair of glasses she actually genuinely liked, while waiting for her sister to stop humiliating herself. In the meantime, she would simply try to get her attention.

"Yang! Yang! YAAAAAAANG!"

The poor guy was pretty much getting dragged around by his collar by Yang, despite the fact that he was supposed to be showing her what to look for. He looked at Ruby, eyes pleading for salvation that would likely never come. Ruby's pity for him was palpable. Alas, there was no way she could convince her to settle for anything less than unachievable perfection.

...Come to think of it, there was one way to rescue this poor guy from his fate. It was risky, but it would buy her the time to buy the glasses and GTFO.

"Yang! THERE'S SOMETHING IN YOUR HAIR!" the little sister shouted, acting horrified.

Yang dropped the cashier, who landed with a thud on the tile floor. The doctor sitting off to the other side of the room took off his headphones, which, up to this point, had kept him from hearing the raucous commotion in his place of business. Now, he looked confused at the teenager about to smash her head in the nearest wall. Silently, he cursed his luck, and wondered which Maiden he had pissed off enough to warrant this misfortune.

"SON OF A BIT- BISCUIT!" Yang corrected her language, trying valiantly to preserve the innocence of her- and our- favorite cinnamon roll. "WHERE?" she screamed, her hair lighting up as it always did when her Semblance initiated.

"On the back of your head!" Ruby replied, acting mortified for her poor, gracious older sister. While Yang was distracted trying to get that something out of her hair, Ruby ran to the register, quickly ringing the little bell. The cashier quickly crawled towards it, frantically typing something in the register.

"I just want the glasses," Ruby said.

"And the glasses you will get, and hopefully the doctor doesn't destroy the city block when his Semblance goes off."

"Yeah, that'd be great."

The guy looks over at Yang, then back at Ruby. "You know what? Forget it, just go. I'll cover for you."

"Wait, you don't want my money?"

"ANYTHING to get you out of the store RIGHT NOW."

"Okay, thank you! YANG, YOU GOT IT!" Ruby shouted.

"Oh, thank Monty, I thought I was ruined. Also, a display case kinda exploded. Shoddy craftsmanship, amirite?" Yang chuckled nervously as said display case's contents continued to burn behind her, and the eye specialist tried not to jump over the counter and strangle the bespectacled blonde. Which was REALLY. FUCKING. HARD. His glasses took an awfully creepy shine, and it was at that time Ruby decided that it was time to go bye-bye.

"Come on, Yang!"

"Wait, I gotta pay!"

"She paid for both of you," the cashier lied, smiling so wide it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that he was full of bullshit.

"Heck yeah, little sis! Let's get out of here, the rest of the mall is still open!"

Yang grabbed her by the cape and dragged her along to the main mall complex, leaving the cashier and the doctor to watch the designer case burn.

"Those were the nice ones..." the cashier mused, frowning.

"Brandt. If I ever see them again, you will have to chain me to this desk," The doctor growled, his dog ears folded aggressively.

"Y-yeah, boss, I got ya. I'm gonna go get a notice on the website, I think someone just reserved a pair from that stock."

* * *

 _'Due to unforeseen circumstances, your shipment has been delayed for THREE DAYS. Thank you for your patience.'_

Dag nabbit, 200 lien thrown onto those glasses, and they were going to delay it until Saturday. SATURDAY! Jaune Arc had half a mind to go up there and demand an explanation.

Pyrrha noted his frustration from her position on the next bed, sitting up as she stared down her Geography text. She had hoped, foolishly, that simply staring at it long enough would get the unbelievably and inexcusably boring words about Atlesian regional cultures to get out of the book and walk into her brain through her ears, but that obviously wasn't going to happen. So, instead, she picked up her pen, and started doodling on a piece of paper she intended to take notes on. How shameful, the great Pyrrha Nikos sitting on her ass, spending valuable study time drawing little mini versions of herself and her friends doing random things. What would her father say? Forget that, what would her _mother_ say?

Eh. She would study later. She could always take another late night.

"You need any help with that, Pyrrha?" Ren asked. He had tested out of Geography on the first day of classes, and was more than willing to pass along his knowledge.

"No, I think I've got it, Ren," she replied, "but thank you." She stuck out her tongue, focusing on a dumbbell that she was trying to detail.

"Suit yourself." Ren returned to reading his recipe book. He was awfully interested in a certain recipe for an energy drink- it seemed pretty good, from the list of ingredients. Plus, the health benefits were immense. He made a mental note to buy block cheese, cherries, some lettuce, and industrial-grade pipe cleaner the next time he was out and about.

"Ren, what'cha readin'?" Nora asked, looking up from her research paper about sloth vocalizations- SHE WOULD FIND OUT WHAT THEY FUCKING SOUNDED LIKE, SO HELP HER OUM AND ALL HIS ANGELS.

"Nothing in particular," he replied, turning the page.

"Does it say anything about sloths?"

"No, Nora, it says nothing about sloths."

"Then it's shit literature. Not as shitty as this, though!" she said, pulling up a random, red covered book. "It's called 'My Journal!' How stupid is that!?"

"Nora, that's my journal. Please give it back," Ren said.

"Fine, ya dweebus! Boop!" Nora slapped the book on Ren's nose, dropping it on top of his other book.

Pyrrha continued with her doodling. She went to a drawing she had finished first, namely of Ruby giving Zwei a belly rub . In the back of her mind, she had a strange idea that something was amiss. So, she took her pen, and corrected it, adding a small pair of rectangle glasses to the mini-Ruby. She ruminated on it for a while. ' _I guess it fits..._ _'_

Jaune sighed, laying back on his bed. "So, what's for dinner?"

"I think it's my turn," Pyrrha said, "but I don't know what we have to cook..."

"Chicken, pasta, bread, various vegetables, fruit, some leftover soup... I don't think we have anything quick on hand." Ren prayed that she would let him take over, as per the usual. The last time she decided she was going to try her hand at anything more complex than a ham sandwich, he had to be treated for food poisoning.

"... I don't know. Ren, do you have anything in particular you can think of?"

"Leave it to me." Silently, Ren praised the almighty Oum for saving his stomach from an utter ravaging. He went straight to the little mini-kitchen, leaving the rest of the team alone.

Pyrrha resumed her drawing, outlining two figures holding hands. Nora snuck over to her side.

"What'cha doin'?" she asked.

"Drawing," Pyrrha informed her.

"You draw?" Jaune asked.

"... Not often, and I'm not really go-"

"OH MY GOOOOOOOOOOOOD!" Nora shrieked, leaving Pyrrha with temporary tinnitus, "THIS IS SO FRIGGIN' CUUUUTE!"

"Nora, I'm right here..." Pyrrha whined, trying to recover her hearing as Nora picked up and scanned over her drawings.

"Aw, look, those bottom two are holding hands! Who's that?"

"Uh... just some students I saw walking around in the hall, I haven't finished it yet..." Pyrrha lied, trying not to blush.

"Cool! I wanna see when it's done!"

"You'll be the first to see it, Nora. Now, I think Ren might want your help in the kitchen."

"You right, you right."

Nora bolted to the kitchen, leaving Pyrrha and Jaune alone. Jaune had moved his attention to his Geography book, and seemed rather deep in thought, so she figured he didn't want any interruption.

She crumpled up her impromptu sketch paper and dropped it in the wastebasket.

* * *

Qrow Branwen knocked back yet another shot of whiskey as he sat in his recliner, deep in thought. There was so much to think about, really... there was that stupid idea Ozpin had about sticking all the kids on some sort of reality TV show, or there was Jimmy's girlfriend that he probably could yoink if he really put an effort into it, and, of course, there was the matter of that song and dance party Goodbitch forced him to get involved with, on pain of getting the shit knocked out of him with a riding crop.

Damn, she was scarier than his sister sometimes.

Suddenly, in a moment of nirvana-level clarity, Qrow realized something, something so wonderful, stupendous, and ingenious that he could scarcely believe he had come up with. Why waste his time with his crappy home brew and his thoughts when he could use his latest paycheck to have a rip-roaring bender at Also a Gun?

' _Congratulations, Qrow Branwen. You are a motherfucking genius.'_

He quickly pulled out his Scroll, moving to check his account and see just how much he had gotten on his paycheck.

The first thing he saw was that he just spent 325 lien on two pairs of glasses. Oh, sweet.

Wait a second... He didn't need glasses, he had 20/20 vision, and so did Tai...

* * *

"Awwwwwwwwww! You look so cute!"

Ruby looked at herself in the mirror. The glasses had come with dummy lenses that didn't do anything, but the black rectangular frames did look pretty nice, from this angle. Maybe this would go well after all.

"Yeah, they don't look so bad..." she admitted, turning her head slightly. They weren't too big, and they certainly weren't as expensive as Yang's. 125 lien vs. 200? Ruby was pretty happy with what she had.

"Well, they better not!" Yang said, checking herself out again. The big glasses put an accent on the roundness of her features, and seemed to highlight her eyes. The only gripe she had was-

Well, they were massive. If she had to name them, she'd go with 'Straight outta Homeschool'. Sure, they had some benefits, but now, the first thing people were gonna see was not her rockin' bod, but... the giant panels on her face that might as well be neon signs reading 'I'm a fucking NERRRRD!' Alas, it was for the greater good of her little sister's happiness, so she'd accept it.

The door to their room opened as Weiss and Blake entered, the two doing a double-take at their partners.

"Yang?" Blake asked, her cheeks dusted pink.

"Ruby, you actually went through with it!?" Weiss exclaimed, shocked.

"Yep! Whaddya think?"

Blake swallowed a lump that had suddenly started forming in her throat, while Weiss rolled her eyes.

"I guess they look nice," Weiss admitted.

"Y-yeah. The-they suit you," Blake stuttered, tripping over her own goddamned words at the sheer, unadulterated d'aww in front of her. Yang threw a big, beaming smile that threatened to turn Blake into a black puddle on the floor, while Ruby just shrugged, a smirk forming on her lips.

"Glad you like 'em. So, I guess we'll be debuting them in class tomorrow?" Yang asked.

"Seems like t-that would work! Yeah, that'd be g-great!"

"Blake, is something wrong?"

"NOTHING AT ALL!"

"O...okay."

Yang suddenly got the feeling she was going to like these glasses much more than she originally thought.

 **A/N: I don't know why I made Pyrrha into the artist, I'm just trying to give everyone a hobby. Ren cooks, Weiss sings, and, for the purpose of this fic, Pyrrha draws. It was the most original and fitting thing I could think of.**

 **College has officially begun its rape of my personal schedule, so I'm gonna be sporadic on this fic and GSAO. The latter is gonna be updated less often than this, I'll admit that now, since this fic will probably be a lot shorter.**


	3. All Eyes on You

Oh, What a Spectacle!

Chapter 3

All Eyes on You

 _*BRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING*_

 _*BRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING*_

 _*BRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING*_

 _*BRIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-* *BANG*_

And just like that, Blake lost another 50 lien alarm clock. All because Yang couldn't give less of a fuck about the damn snooze button, but still had the time to grab Ember Celica and shoot the damn thing. Her smaller teammates both shot up in alarm, with Weiss insulting Yang in such flowery prose even Blake would have to crack open a dictionary to comprehend all of it.

The things she did for lo- _lots of mutual respect and valuable friendships that she wouldn't trade for the world!_ Not that other word, no sir! Blake didn't other-word anybody, nuh-uh, abso-positively-lutely did NOT. Not at all, not a single bit.

While Yang look confused at her mentally-incapacitated teammate, the younger sister hopped off of her bed, stretching out. "Good morning!"

"Good morning, my backside! Yang nearly blew a hole in the wall!" Weiss shrieked.

"'Ey, what'ver works, right?" Yang slurred, still half asleep, despite having enough energy to get up and blow up a nice clock. "I turn'd it off, didn't I?"

"Yes, but was shooting the clock the best course of action?" Blake inquired, folding her arms after she managed to refocus her thoughts.

"Yup."

"Then there is no reasoning with you."

The rest of the team went about their morning rituals, while Ruby got first dibs on dressing. Throwing her uniform on, not worrying about wrinkles or creases like the rest of her team, she started looking around to make sure she hadn't missed anything. Brushed teeth? She grinned, and her teeth gleamed back at her in the mirror. Check. Hair combed? A small sprig of hair defiantly popped up, which she answered by licking her hands and patting it down. Check. Glasses?

She grabbed the articles of eyewear from their little case, putting them on and giving herself a once over.

Cha-cha-cha-CHECK!

She walked out, a little kick in her step as she walked back into the bunk room.

* * *

 _Two hours earlier._

JNPR's waking routine was a lot more unusual than their friends'.

At 4:00 every morning- save for times she accidentally overslept- Pyrrha would run two laps around the campus, which was also her time for introspection and cleaning out her mind for the day, and return for a quick, quiet shower at 5:30. At 4:01, Ren would hear her getting ready, and wake up, spending precious quiet time studying for any classes he had that day. Nora would wake up at about 6:00, while Jaune, without fail, always woke up at 6:04 and 32 seconds on the dot. As of yet, none of them were able to figure out exactly why.

However, today was an unusual day.

At 2:30, Pyrrha had a bad dream and woke up, and would not go back to sleep. She spent a few minutes trying to draw, but gave up, and decided to take her run early. Ren heard her get up, but had immediately fallen back to sleep, and, due to the sudden wrecking of his routine, was acting unusually outgoing. Nora woke up at 2:45 due to feeling the 'ill vibes, brah' and refused to go back to sleep, instead going to look for Pyrrha, who, by that point, was half the campus away. Jaune woke up at about 3:13 and 53 seconds, and, upon waking, said something about treadmills. Pyrrha, feeling wired due to her nightmare, didn't want to stay out all morning, and cut her run short at 3:00, making it back to the dorm at 3:13:54. Nora got lost, and didn't make it back until 4:00.

So, here they were, at 4 sharp, wide awake. Pyrrha was wearing a sports bra and boy shorts, with her hair still in a messy cascade down to the middle of her back. Nora's return was heralded by the energetic carrot-top throwing open the door wearing nothing but a t-shirt and sloth-print boxers so loose she almost flashed Team AQUA's Asher Maddox whenever he came to see what the commotion was. Ren, as per the usual, was wearing the heart onesie that Nora insisted on getting him for his birthday.

"Why was I born..." Nora asked, flopping onto her bed.

"So, you had a nightmare?" Ren asked Pyrrha, who sat guilt-ridden on her bed.

"It was a dream, and I let it get the best of me. I apologize for waking you."

"Pyrrha, you are my alarm clock. You would have woken me no matter what time you got up, there's no harm done."

"... am I really that loud?"

Ren weighed his words. When she was tired, her semblance acted up, and the first time she had ever gone through her routine, he was awakened by the sound of a frying pan sticking to her ass. That was not an anecdote he wanted to share, as much as he loved embarrassing stories.

"...it's not you, so much as the room itself." Good answer, Ren. Leave it to Jaune to speak well of her posterior... if he ever fucking noticed.

"Wait, so... Pyrrha had a bad dream, then Ren woke up, then Nora ran around the school?" Jaune asked, eyes half shut, hair in a mess, and down to his boxers -he had shed the onesie and switched after it got too hot in the room-. "Is there something I'm missing?"

Pyrrha looked over at him, trying to focus on his face and NOTHING. ELSE. "That's... the long and short of it."

"Well, crap. We gonna try and sleep again?"

"NO." Nora suddenly growled from her place on the bed. "I'M WOKE, AND I'M STAYIN' WOKE."

"I really don't think I'll be able to wake up in time for class if I go back to sleep," Ren explained. "Unlike the rest of you, I have a second-year class, and I can't afford to miss."

"I've already had my morning run... I might as well stay up and study," Pyrrha said, blinking rapidly to try and clear the sleep out of her eyes.

"I'm gonna try and go back to sleep..." Jaune said, laying back down on his bed.

"Sleep well, then," his partner bade, smiling.

Ren sighed, cracking open his Advanced Combat Techniques textbook, and turning to a page he dog-eared. Nora simply rolled on the bed a few times.

"Oh, by the way," Jaune suddenly spoke up, drowsily looking over at his partner. "You should wear your hair down sometimes, Pyr. It suits you."

Thank all of the Gods that the lights were off, lest anyone see that Pyrrha's face was redder than her hair. Ren was shocked at the sudden, sleepy outburst from his 'bro', and his eyebrows shot up so high they were almost merging with his scalp. Nora bit the comforter of her bed to avoid jumping out of her bed and throwing him through the wall into team AQUA's room screaming 'JUST DO IT!', which would have probably ended with JNPR's room flooding and Maddox getting a bloody nose.

Pyrrha's mental deluge of _'ohfuckshitpissgoddamnshitcrapsonofabitchfuckme'_ evidently translated to _'Allow me to attempt to court you by imitating a tea kettle'_ in Mistralian.

"Does anyone hear a mouse?" Ren asked, wondering where that high-pitched squeal was coming from.

"Goodnighteveryonesleepwell!" Pyrrha squeaked, before burying herself in her bedsheets.

Ren sighed, looking back at his book. "Good night, I suppose. I'll wake you at six."

* * *

 _Now_

Pyrrha, against her better judgement, hand ended up putting her hair in its usual high tail that morning.

Team JNPR was normally there slightly before RWBY, to be fair, but they had been a bit longer than expected. Hell, even the perpetually tardy LPLZ was on time, which was a surprise in and of itself. So surprising, in fact, that Goodwitch actually spit out her onto Port's coat, which got a rise out of all the students who could see the disciplinarian's mortified expression. However, said distraction was pulled from JNPR's mind by the sound of four seats across from them being taken. They turned to greet their friends, expecting to see four pairs of eyes.

Instead, they got six. Well, they're glasses, but you get the point.

"Ruby?" Ren asked, "you went and bought glasses?"

"Yep!" Ruby popped the 'p', and pointed at her big sister. "Yang took me out yesterday, and she decided to get some too!"

Yang gave a nervous smile at JNPR, waving. "Yeah... big ol' glasses."

"Oh. My. Oum. You. Two. Look. ADORABLE! HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"

Ruby shut her eyes and put on her best smile, while Yang seemed shocked. "W-wait, you guys like them?" She thought this was supposed to make Ruby look cute, not her. Yang wasn't stupid, but she was no whiz kid, either, and it was taking all of her brain power not used on breathing, looking bomb as fuck, or simply governing her heartbeat to try and comprehend why these bullet-blockers apparently looked good on her.

"Hey, nerd chic never hurt anybody," Jaune agreed, smiling. "What, you thought we were gonna laugh at you?"

"A little..."

"Oh ye of little faith!" he dramatically shouted, holding his hand over his heart.

Pyrrha noticed in her drowsy state that the nearest teams were staring at them. Ah, well.

"Pyrrha, whaddya think?" Yang asked, beaming.

"... w-wha-wha?"

"Paging Doctor Pyrrha! Paging Doctor Pyrrha!" Nora droned.

"You should grab that!" Lancaster Raine shouted.

"Shut up, Lancaster, nobody wants you!" someone in the back of the room shouted.

"I have a cannon!"

While the two extras continued their debate, Pyrrha attempted to figure out what was going on. "What did you say?"

"Yang asked if you liked her glasses!" Nora restated.

"Yeah, they look nice..."

"Pyrrha, if you need a pick-me-up, I can go fix you an energy drink," Ren offered.

"No..." Pyrrha muttered.

"Suit yourself... by the way, you have that Geography test in a few minutes."

"Oh, great," Yang said. "I forgot to study!" The unstated attachment to that was 'so I'm gonna sit next to Pyrrha and nonchalantly copy her answers and hope Port doesn't notice.'

"I'm ready, I guess!" Ruby said. "It shouldn't be that-"

* * *

"-TERRIBLE!" Yang shouted. "35 percent?"

"Maybe you shouldn't have copied Pyrrha's answers, then," Blake chided her.

"But she always aces everything! What the hell!?"

"Did you not see how tired she was? She probably B.S.'d her way through the whole test."

* * *

"I B.S.'d my way through that whole test," Pyrrha lamented as she stood with the rest of her Advanced Semblance Utilties class -Maddox, his partner Quincy, Lancaster, Nora, Cardin, and a transfer student named Mercury . "Stupid nightmare..."

Maddox patted her on the back. "Hey, it coulda been worse! You coulda... you coulda... ah, yeah, it's bad. But hey, I failed too. Stupid mouse."

"A mouse?" she asked, looking confused.

"Yeah, there was some mouse in the wall between our room and yours. It was making all kinds of racket, kinda ruined my sleep."

"... I don't know of any mouse... I'll be sure to... look for one..." Pyrrha blushed, looking away from him. Maddox sighed, rolling his eyes.

"You usually cut this class, why did you show up today?" Lancaster asked from the other side of him.

"I normally go training with- Oh gods, you're right! Cover for me!" With that, she ran out of the room, leaving Maddox reaching for her, and Lancaster staring at the empty space where she used to be standing.

"The fuck's her problem?" Mercury asked.

"I have no idea," Maddox admitted. "I think she was late for something."

 **Lancaster is a walking joke, and when someone figures it out, please let me know in a message. I'll give you a virtual cookie.**

 **Anyway, the OC's are mainly showing up just to diversify the cast. Here's the info.**

 **AQUA- Asher Maddox, Quincy Ecro, Umber Kidd, and Andres Teale.  
LPLZ (LaPis Lazuli, or, as they will jokingly be called, lolplease/lolplz)- Leif Littleby, Pepper Nicros, Lancaster Raine, Zebulon Raine**


	4. Eye of the Tiger

Oh, What a Spectacle!

Chapter 4

Eye of the Tiger

Advanced Semblance Utilities was something of a gimme grade at Beacon Academy. If, by the time of the final exam, you showed a well-developed mastery of your Semblance, you passed with an A. All things considered, students who had relatively straightforward Semblances, like Cardin, or had used them in training for many years prior to the course, as with Pyrrha, never had a problem with the class- hell, Qrow didn't even care if they showed up except for the final.

Which, along with the fact that Jaune didn't have any more classes until after lunch, led to this being his and Pyrrha's training time.

Unfortunately, in her half-sleeping stupor, she was five minutes late- in her family's book, that means she might as well have not shown up at all. So, she barreled down the hallway to JNPR's dorm like a crimson bullet, including running over a very flustered Dove Bronzewing. She threw open the door to the room, rushing inside to change into more comfortable attire, throwing clothes across the room trying in order to take as little time as possible. Having done that, she stepped into the bathroom to give herself a once-over.

Yep, all good.

She left the room almost as quickly as she came in.

* * *

Jaune had to admit, he was shocked Pyrrha wasn't here yet. One of the first things she learned about his partner was that she was very schedule-driven. No matter what she was doing, she was always early. Her morning run, JNPR's team building exercises, class, ANYTHING SHE DID, she wouldn't be caught dead arriving late.

It was a little worrying, to say the least. Although, his better judgement reasoned that she simply was tired after the long night, and wasn't working full steam.

Sure enough, he looked up from his Scroll to find her throwing open the rooftop access door.

"Sorry I'm late! I kind of forgot our training session."

"All good, P-Money."

She had yet to understand just why Nora had come up with that nickname. She'd figure it out eventually, she supposed.

"Where are your weapons?" Jaune asked, pointing over her shoulder. Ah, shit, she knew she forgot something.

"Uh... today's a hand to hand combat training session," she lied, putting up her fists awkwardly. "Fisticuffs, and all that."

"Alright, then, guess I don't need Crocea," he said, laying the sword and shielth down behind him. "You know I can't hit a girl, right?"

"Jaune, for the purposes of this training, I'm going to ask you to hit me."

He chuckled. "Not sure if that's possible..."

"No, it's fine. The worst that could happen is I could get a bruise."

"Pyrrha, I was joking. I meant that I probably won't even be able to hit you."

She frowned. "No, stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Doubting your ability."

"Alright, alright... just don't beat me up too bad, okay?"

She smiled. "No promises. Now, let's get started. Come here."

Jaune stepped up to her, hands at his sides. Pyrrha then proceeded to smack him in the face with a quick jab.

"Ow, what the heck!?"

"First rule, keep your hands up."

"You could have illustrated that without punching me in the face!"

"I just figured that would be an ample demonstration!" she said, throwing another jab at him. This time, he had his hands up, and he caught it with his forearm, causing him to flinch.

"Don't flinch, it's going to hurt. If you give, your opponent can capitalize on it."

"Alright, alright, alright." He stepped back, and leaned back, getting ready to throw a punch. The move was sloppy, coming from far out of right field slowly enough that she was able to catch it in her hand and punch him twice in the stomach, before kicking him in the chest and knocking him back.

"And I'm supposed to hit you HOW, exactly?" he said, righting himself.

"You have to be less predictable. Come back up here."

"You're going to punch me again!"

"Yes, but it's for demonstration purposes!"

"Why don't you just punch the air?"

She sighed, assuming a tight kickboxing stance. "I'm going to show you the different types of punches and kicks." She shot out with a quick fist, following it up with another one from the same arm, before firing off another with the opposite. "Those are jabs. They don't hurt as much as a big punch, but they can punish an opponent who isn't guarding, and they're quick enough to follow most other attacks."

Jaune imitated her, a little less straight than she did, but acceptable.

She threw another jab, followed by a looping right. "That right was a hook punch. You can use a hook to try and get around a block, or hit an opponent hard enough to stagger them."

She continued on, Jaune imitating her moves. His kicks were a lot sloppier than his punches, and those weren't fantastic either, but he was starting to pick up. It seemed that he felt most comfortable on the defensive, as his jabs were surprisingly fast, although slightly crooked. He leaned too much into his uppercuts, which would give any potential opponent a good opportunity to punish him with a jab or a haymaker. His kicks were wobbly and unbalanced, to the point where he nearly fell in his attempt at a roundhouse kick. But, his knee strikes were surprisingly stiff, as were his forearm strikes. Sure, those were the hardest parts of the body, but he seemed a lot more comfortable with them than extending himself with kicks or fancy combos.

"Okay, I think I'm ready," he said, and, despite all of Pyrrha's inhibitions about his technique, she figured it was best for him to learn by trial-and-error. And by error, she meant 'a lot of getting decked in the face'. She'd at least try to be gentle, for his sake.

"Very well, let's begin."

Jaune smiled, slowly approaching her, hands raised. He at least had the stance right. He threw a quick jab, which was effortlessly blocked, as were its two follow-ups. Jaune went for a hook, which she swatted aside before throwing a snap uppercut that caught him in the jaw, rocking him. The next few jabs were aimed at his gut, then followed by a wide right hook he barely was able to block in time.

Undeterred, he swung, barely missing her forehead and sending a slight breeze through her hair, forcing her to duck to the side and sock him in the abdomen, before sweeping his feet out from under him and kneeling beside him. "One to nothing, Jaune."

"Okay, then!" he said, brushing off her offer to help him up and shaking his head. "Let's try this again."

Pyrrha couldn't help but smile at his enthusiasm. "Good luck!"

He lowers himself, rushing in with a jab to the abdomen, following it up with two more, the second of which Pyrrha sidesteps, countering with a kick that lifts him up from his lower position to full height as he tries to regain his senses. She throws a roundhouse to follow up, but he's surprisingly able to duck it, and kick her shin, causing her leg to buckle slightly as she goes to turn and face him. He follows it up with a hook that she has to rush to block, leaving her unable to stop his follow up jab. He throws a knee, which she bats aside. She retorts with a kick that catches him in the chin, followed by sweeping the leg right to catch his face with her shoe. He spins, trying to hit her with the back of his fist, and actually connects, his knuckles smacking into her mouth hard enough to stagger her.

"Oh, crap, Pyrrha! You okay!?" he asks. "Didn't mean to hit you that hard!"

Her Aura almost instantaneously heals the cut that blow made on her lip, and she smiles at him. "You hit me, congratulations! You're getting better, Jaune."

"That's it?"

"Oh, no, no, no, no, noooo. I was going easy on you."

Jaune HATED when he accidentally brought out his partner's competitive side.

* * *

"Oooow..."

Pyrrha awkwardly looked away as Jaune clutched an ice pack to the big whelp on the side of his head from a flying back kick.

"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha clutched her hands nervously, expression downcast.

"No, it's okay. Now we're even for me getting you in the face."

"Jaune, you busted open my lip. I gave you bruises on 65 percent of your body, a black eye, and nearly gave you a concussion. That is NOT even."

"Seems fair to me."

She groaned at his obstinate defense of her, holding her head. "Still, I hit you a little harder than I needed to, and I apologize."

"Pyrrha, it's fine. Don't beat yourself up about it. Beat me up instead, you're pretty good at that."

"JAUNE!" She blanched at that. "Y-you!"

"Kidding, kidding. I like it like that!"

"Wait... you what!?"

Ren looked up from his book. "Kinky."

"That's not what I meant, Ren, and you know that!"

"So you say, Jaune, so you say..." Ren muttered sagely as he looked back at his book.

"So... wanna get lunch? RWBY should be back from second hour by now," Jaune stood up, dropping the icepack on the bed.

Pyrrha thought about it for a moment, and nodded. "Let me shower and change first, okay?"

Ren gave a sly wink to Jaune, who did not understand what the hell he meant. "I'll meet you guys there, I guess." With that, he walked out, throwing his bag full of books over his shoulder, shutting the door behind him.

"You're not really going to shower and change, or go down to the canteen, are you?" Ren asked his teammate.

"No," Pyrrha snapped, before flopping onto her bed with the grace of a drunken tortoise in high heels. Her thoughts were everywhere but lunch, or RWBY, or really, anything that wasn't Jaune. Ah, 12:30 introspection: the worst part of her schedule.

"How do you do it, Ren?"

"Do what?"

"Live with having the person you like... you know, not liking you."

Although he was tempted to tell her he had found out otherwise and that she and Sun owed her 500 lien apiece, he figured that what Nora, Sun, Pyrrha, and anyone else in the betting pool didn't need to know that.

"Jaune likes you, Pyrrha."

"You know what I mean, Ren."

"Look, as your not gay gay best friend, I'm going to be frank with you. You need to be honest with him."

"He still likes Weiss! I thought after the dance, he finally realized how I felt, but he went right back to pining after her..."

"Look, Weiss is eventually going to get tired of this charade and come complaining to either you or me- Nora would just go and beat Jaune over the head with Weiss' body- and then it will be as simple as telling him. Pyrrha, you're a great teammate, and a wonderful person, but you have the self confidence of a home-schooler in a game of shots."

She was silent at that. Mainly because she didn't know what 'shots' was. Maybe she'd ask Yang later.

"I'll tell you what, give me a few days. I'll think of something."

Pyrrha chuckled, sitting up. "Don't waste your valuable time on me, Ren."

"Pyrrha, I have spent so much brainpower on you two, it might kill me if I stop. Please, don't worry about it."

Pyrrha stood up, stretching her arms. "I'm going to take a shower, thanks Ren."

"No problem."

She walked into the bath, but stopped, looking back out of the doorframe. "Why do you not talk to anyone in public as much as you do here? Just wondering."

Ren looked up, as if staring through the ceiling at something. He eventually looked back at his Amazonian teammate. "I guess I just like you all more than everyone else."

As she stepped back into the shower, Ren thought about just what he had walked himself into yet again. For some reason, Ren hated seeing people upset- perhaps it was because of him being bullied so badly during his childhood due to his lack of a family, or maybe it was a deeply entrenched belief in the power of joy, or something like that, but he knew, as of right now, only one thing.

 _'I WILL be a groomsman at least ONCE in my lifetime.'_

* * *

"Jaune, what the hell happened to you!?" Yang asked, staring at the blonde noodle across the table from her. He looked like he had tried to fight a speeding train and lost. Yang was many things that may or may not be insulting, but she was RWBYJNPR's unofficial 'big sis', and if someone fucked with anyone in her brood, they were gonna get put in a body bag.

"Me and Pyrrha were sparring, and we got a little overzealous..." he explained, eye still half-shut. "I'm okay, I promise."

"Jaune, are you sure?" Blake asked, looking concerned. "You can go to the nurse."

"I'm fine, it's only 65 percent of my body!"

"FRICKING MONTY, JAUNE!" Ruby shouted, slamming her fists on the table, "65 percent of your body is beat the shiz out of!?"

"Uh... no?"

Weiss facepalmed, shaking her head. "I will never understand any of you... even Pyrrha has joined in the insanity..."

Blake's cat ears perked up as she started looking around. Jaune noticed that she seemed disturbed by something, and looked where she was looking. Sure enough, Asher Maddox sat not that far from their group, looking at them.

"You seen that redheaded chick?"

"Which one?" Yang asked, looking confused. "And who are you again?"

"Uh, the one with the really long hair. I'm Asher Maddox."

"Oh, I have a class with Asher," Weiss said. "He shouted some inane thing in our class one day..."

"Why are you looking for Pyrrha?" Blake asked.

"Wanted to see why she ran out of class like she was about to miss an appointment with the almighty."

"She's still in our dorm, I can tell her you were looking for her," Jaune informed him.

"Yeah, thanks, guy."

The main cast of our story all looked away from the guy they didn't really know that well at all, due to his bit role in this story that up to this point was simply 'oh he's JNPR's nice neighbor man.' What he wanted with Pyrrha was beyond their comprehension, although Blake instinctively didn't like it, and made a note to say something to Ren. Everyone else found his presence unusual but believable, because this is a fanfiction, and you can do that in fanfiction-

"Guys, it sounds like someone's trying to punch a hole in the wall," Ruby noted, looking around the building for any sort of visual evidence.

Whoops.

 **Ren and Ruby really need to stop cramping my style, guys.**

 **Anyway, the plot thickens! Another character decides to go get some dank eyewear, Maddox ends up in the middle of a shipping pool because he can't keep his goddamn nose out of people's business. Pyrrha continues to have vague and passive-aggressive interactions with Jaune! Nora... Noras!**

 **By the way, I apologize for the weird schedule. I finally caught up with Dangan Ronpa, and my favorite character literally died right at the beginning of the arc (well, I think she's dead, Junko's died already, and she's still kicking aboot.), so fuck me, right? Anyway, I'll see everyone in the next update! READ AND REVIEW!**


	5. Look, but Don't Touch

Oh, What a Spectacle!

Chapter 5

Look, But Don't Touch

Given the circumstances, one would forgive Blake Belladonna for being a mite conflicted at her current predicament.

The young lady had found herself at a glasses store at the mall with almost no effort on her part, as if her feet naturally carried her there. The in-house eye specialist stared at her with the burning intensity of a thousand suns, before shrugging and walking away. The guy at the register sat uncomfortably behind said device, awkwardly fiddling with a Scroll that was open to the month's expense statements, plus the shipping information on the new glasses. He looked up at Blake, smiling a fake, but sweet smile.

"Can I help you?"

"Um... I need glasses."

"Watch out, Brandt, we've got a whiz kid over here..." the doctor muttered.

"Well, this is a glasses store, ma'am," the register boy said, pointing at the sign above his head. "Corrective or cosmetic?"

"Cosmetic," She replied.

"Are you gonna blow anything up?" the doctor asked.

Blake's confusion only grew as she turned to stare at the doctor. "Wait... what?"

"Are you. Going to. Blow. Things. Up?"

"... I guess not?"

The doctor sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Fine, then." He opened up the latest issue of X-Ray and Vav, ignoring the young woman's further confusion, as cosmetics meant he didn't have to do anything but sit there and look pretty.

"Anything in particular you're looking for, miss?" the register boy asked Blake, leaning over the counter.

"I... I want something... Impressive."

"Uh... yeah, I think I can help you with that."

* * *

"- and that is why you must NEVER approach a Boarbatusk from the rear. Any questions?"

Port's Grimm Studies class was arguably the most boring out of any of Weiss' curricular activities. Sure, she had the usual gang of hats and lunatics that identified as her 'friends', save for Yang and Blake, but Port's long-winded tales and rambling speeches killed any sort of enthusiasm the group had-even with Nora involved. Luckily for them, no one had any questions to get Port's gears grinding again, and the disappointed instructor fetched a heavy sigh.

"Very well, then, you are dismissed."

That woke them up.

The entire class moved as if a switch had been flipped, the students all rushing for the exit like a righteous flood of humanity. Weiss used her smaller figure to weave through the crowd without getting brutalized, and managed to safely come out the door, with nothing but her usual side-tail worse for wear. Ruby had utilized a similar strategy to Weiss, while Nora and Pyrrha just brute-forced their way through the crowd. Jaune and Ren had no such skills, as both were at just the right boundary between lean and built to not be able to squeeze through, and only barely too small to bull-rush over or through the crowd. Jaune's nice shiner was drawing all kind of looks from his classmates, but he dismissed them as easily as swatting a gnat.

Finally, the two young men made it out of the classroom.

"If I never hear Port's voice for the rest of my days, it shall be far too soon," Ren muttered.

"He means well," Pyrrha conceded. "He just gets a little... a little..."

"Grandiose," Weiss finished for her.

"Yes, that's the word."

"So, who still has class?" Jaune asked, trying to remember everyone's schedules correctly.

"I'm done," Ruby said. "Most of my classes are on even days!"

"We still have Physical Education, Jaune," Pyrrha reminded him, drawing a groan from the blonde.

"I have a class in two hours... Advanced Dust Mechanics. Ren, aren't you in that class?" Weiss thought she recalled him sitting behind her in said class.

"Yes, but only because I had an empty slot in my schedule that I felt needed filling."

"I thought you were in it for meeeeee!" Nora protested.

"Well, someone does have to ensure you don't blow up Glynda's classroom, Nora."

"Yeaaaaah, boiiiiii!"

"So, PhysEd is in... an hour..." Jaune muttered. "I don't know what to do to kill an hour..."

"I didn't get lunch, yet, Jaune... if you'd like to, um, accompany me, I'd be very grateful." Pyrrha suggested, trying to push down her nerves. She had gotten better with the simple 'friendship' aspect of dealing with the noodly one and her fellow teammates, but she still got a bit wired whenever she tried to spend one-on-one time with them. The perks of having a massive fan club, she supposed.

"Oh, sure! I already ate, but I guess going back couldn't hurt!"

Ren frowned as he looked back at the message Blake sent him on his Scroll earlier.

 _'There's a torpedo headed for the boat. Need to change course.'_

Man, his fellow straight man had a strange choice of words. Maddox was not a torpedo, and Pyrrha was not a boat. And how one would exactly change Pyrrha's course without her knowledge was beyond him. She was... well... she kind of dwarfed him, size wise.

Wait a second...

"We'll catch up with you guys later!" Jaune waved as he bade the group goodbye for the moment, as he and Pyrrha headed to the cafeteria.

Torpedoes... boats... shipping? Maybe it was something about shipping lanes. Was Pyrrha a victim of human trafficking who was saved by an errant torpedooooh fuck it he knew exactly what Blake meant, he just didn't feel like doing it.

After all, Maddox was such a nice neighbor.

* * *

"I thought you had already eaten, Jaune?" Pyrrha asked as she sat down beside him at the smaller table towards the corner of the cafeteria. She hadn't gotten much, unlike the usual, just some seasoned bread and a chicken breast. Jaune had gotten a baked potato and overloaded it with bacon and cheese. Well, at least he was enjoying himself, she supposed.

"I figured it'd be rude to just sit here and watch you eat." He poked at the entrée, sighing as he rubbed his non-ringed eye.

"I'm sorry about earlier, again. I don't know what came over me..."

"Pyrrha, I get it, you love competition. Remember that one time at game ni-"

"No!" Pyrrha suddenly snapped. "I don't remember losing anything! Do you remember me losing anything? Do you, Jaune?"

"Ye-yes?"

"I'm sorry, I must have hit you so hard you've been rendered delusional! Silly me!" Pyrrha's game face intensified, and Jaune felt an extremely confusing feeling in his lower regions that he's pretty sure he isn't supposed to be feeling right about now.

"U-uh, yeah! I must be out of it, you never lose."

'Unless you try to play Kindall in Ultimate Brawl Four...' his inner voice sing-songed. 'Then even I destroy you...' Well, it wasn't her fault she kept side-B'ing off the stage. Rookie mistake.

"This is why you're such a great partner, Jaune, you're always so supportive."

"Um, yeah! Go team Arkos!" Jaune shouted nervously.

Lancaster shot up in his seat, and the sound of a record scratching WAS NOT heard, but would have been extremely fitting in this situation.

"Team What?" Pyrrha asked, confused.

"You know, Arc plus Nikos? Arkos!" Jaune explained, a tense grin on his lips.

"... I like it," Pyrrha said, smiling at him. "That'll be nice... 'Arkos'..."

"Yeah, came up with it myself!"

Lancaster made a strange noise somewhere between a whine and a groan as he sat down. Jaune munched on a particularly-baconated spoonful of potato, while Pyrrha absently picked at her meal, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

Even with the black eye, he was still pretty cute...

* * *

By the time both noodle and cinnamon bun had run off to get hot and sweaty, Blake had gotten her pair of specs.

She had hoped Yang would at least catch the joke about the glasses shape. They had a small tang on the outer edge of the rims, giving them a slanted appearance, like a cat's eyes. The color wasn't her first choice, but there was nothing wrong with tortoiseshell, she supposed. It made her look bookish, and she wasn't one to put up false pretenses.

She turned her head slightly, getting a slight side profile.

 _*Knockknockknockknockknock* "BLAKE! I GOTTA PEEEEEE! HURRY UP!"_

Well, at least she knew Ruby was acting her usual self.

She stepped out of the bathroom, letting the little red riding ball of energy bolt past her and slam the door. Yang still had class for another hour, so she had plenty of time to set the _shipping issue straight_.

Speaking off, her Scroll rang. It was a message from Ren.

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- Blake we arent going to bury him.

She sighed.

-bumblekitteh- yes we are you silly doofus :3

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle\- why dont we just show him the pool?

-bumblekitteh- why would we do that ^._.^

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- so that he gets the hint that our cinnamon roll boat is not on the market.

-appoMaddox has joined the conversation at the request of spirituallyricalindividualmiracle-

-appoMaddox- I came here to ask if my neighbor was okay and have a good time and honestly im feeling so attacked right now.

-bumblekitteh- Ren why'd you put him in? ^-_-^

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- so that we can tell him about the pool.

-appoMaddox- look can this wait I have PE. I dont need a swim right now.

-appoMaddox has left the conversation.-

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- Blake what are you doing rn?

-bumblekitteh- checkin' out some new glasses :b

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- not you too...

-bumblekitteh- ;-; wym?

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- Jaune bought some glasses the other day. they're coming in... the day after tomorrow, I think. or was it tomorrow? whatever, the point is hes doing it to try and impress Weiss.

-bumblekitteh- and Pyrrha said what? -^-

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- she knows nothing about it. Yet.

-bumblekitteh- oh ok. thats good I guess.

The Scroll was indicating that Ren typed, then deleted, then typed again multiple times, before settling on something.

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- tomorrow's game night. you all free?

-bumblekitteh- yeah I think so, wwp?

-spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- probably UB4, some Alley Brawler, maybe some DPR if anyone wants to challenge Jaune again.

-bumblekitteh- boi do I look like a dummy? -^- Jaune beats everyone at DPR. Or karaoke. Or any game, really.

-spirituallyricalindividualiracle- you in?

-bumblekitteh- hope you like the bitter taste of defeat.

With that, Blake turned off her scroll. She wondered what exactly the ante was going to be this time. JNPR almost always came up with them, and always ended up doing the punishment entailed, due to the fact the only dedicated gamer on their team was Jaune. Pyrrha spent so little time inside that they had to explain where the B button was to her, despite the fact that the B-button was a big red button marked 'B'. Ren was a filthy fucking casual, and Nora just didn't care. She griefed everyone that wasn't Ren, sometimes intentionally, other times on accident. Meanwhile, both Ruby and Yang, for all their faults, kicked ass at games, and Blake wouldn't call herself half-bad either. And, surprisingly, Weiss was a fast learner.

Well, she sucked, but at least she didn't repeatedly side-B off stage every time she picked up a controller...

* * *

 **Blake: Pepper Olive Tortoise: Cateye for the catwoman. Eyyyy.**

 **I apologize for the delay. I've been forcing myself to write this chapter so you guys wouldn't be upset, and so I could get the fucking lead out, so I apologize if it's not quite up to snuff. It's been a rough time.**

 **Also, Arkos is slowly taking over this fic, too. And it makes me somewhat ashamed of myself. Please don't flame me.**

 **In today's headcanon news, Jaune knows that bacon's the good shit, Ren (who moonlights as a Filthy Frank wannabe) and Blake have a secret shipping pool, Pyrrha is a new Little Mac player, RWBYJNPR have Saturday Night Game Nights, and apparently Despair Horizon tried to crawl into RWBY, only to get relegated to a bit role in a fighting game.**

bumblekitteh- Blake

spirituallyricalindividualmiracle- Ren

de_top_banana- Sun

appoMaddox- Maddox

themantheycoudln'tYang- Yang

cookiesfordayzzz- Ruby

freakinmarknutt- Scarlet

thisisMistral- Pyrrha

 **(-is too busy playing the JNPR DLC for Grimm Eclipse to finish author's note. OP Nora is OP.-)**


	6. Blind Lead the Blind

Oh, What a Spectacle!

Chapter 6

Blind Lead the Blind

Advanced Dust Mechanics was probably Nora's favorite and least favorite class, all at once. On the one hand, explosions... but on the other hand... Glynda didn't like explosions...

Oh, what a world, what a cold, cruel world. At least she had Ren next to her...

"Miss Valkyrie, which type of dust is best used against Ursai?"

Oh shit she doesn't know. She just hit the things with her hammer. And grenades. But mostly the hammer. What the hell is she supposed to know about Dust application? WHY IS SHE HERE? IS THERE A GOD!? WHAT DOES THE FUCKING SLOTH SAY!? WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DEEP AND PHILISOPHICAL INQUIRIES PINBALLING AROUND HER SKULL!? WHY!? WHY!? WHYYYYY!?

"Miss Valkyrie, it would be nice if you could answer the question before sundown," Glynda informed her dryly.

"Uh, Uh, Uh..."

Ren started fanning his face. Was he hot? Of course he was fucking hot, he's Ren. Nora knew that damn well. Did something stink? She didn't smell anything out of the ordinary, save for the lack of smoke and explodeyness that this class was supposed to entail. Oh, Monty, he was looking at her. And he was fanning himself more. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN!?

"Nora, just say fire dust!" Weiss harshly whispered from in front of her. Oh, yeah.

"Ice Dust!" Nora shouted, smiling.

Weiss snapped back in her chair, Ren facedesked, and eeyup guy shouted 'EEYUP!' at the top of his lungs. While Glynda was distracted with him, Weiss and Ren both looked at Nora.

"What?" she asked, smiling.

"How can you be that dull?" Weiss asked. "How? HOW?"

"Nora, we've gone over this exact question at least six times this week, and you give any answer that isn't correct every. Single. Time. What is going on?" Ren asked, exasperated.

"Well, there's a lot of things. Our shipping betting pool, our game night tomorrow, WHATEVER IT IS THE FUCKING SLOTH SAYS, nigga, I DON'T KNOW! Plus, you know this is a trick question, that's why the right answer isn't right!"

While Weiss' brain feebly attempted to keep up with Nora's rambling, Ren's more acclimated faculties compelled him to sigh. "Nora... you are failing this class."

"Would you kindly all be quiet for at least twenty-five seconds?" Glynda asked, having cowed eeyup guy. "Nora, that answer is incorrect. Would anyone else like to try and answer the question?"

Ren sighed. "Fire Dust. The Ursa's mass gives the flame more fuel, while the creature is too slow to weaponized any flaming appendages."

"Correct. Next question. What is-"

* * *

"-THIS BULLSHIT!?" Lancaster shouted, staring at the obstacle course set up just inside of the athletics hall.

"An obstacle course," his brother, Zebulon, noted, blowing an errant lock of white hair out of his eyes.

"Yes, I can see that, but why!? You know I'm not athletic!" Lancaster laments, slouching.

"Dude, you carry a quad-barreled cannon that deploys from a backpack on your back, held up with no support other than four braces attached to the backpack, requiring you to still carry the cannon for the most part, and it fires giant laser beams. If anyone here is athletic, it's between Nikos and you," Maddox informs him.

Pyrrha looked at the obstacle course, and chuckled.

"Something funny, Pyr?" Jaune asked, still nursing the black eye that had gotten him a weird look from everyone in the class.

"Everyone seems so intimidated, it's not a large obstacle course. The hardest part will be jumping from beam to beam on that ascending pathway," Pyrrha explained. "You could do that, Jaune."

Those bars were barely big enough to accommodate his heel, let alone give him any sort of foot hold for a jump. "Uh..."

Oobleck looked over the griping students- and Pyrrha- with a sense of mixed pride and disappointment. The exchange student, Miss Sustrai, had skipped every single one of her classes save for this one up to this point, and Lancaster was possibly the only person in Remnant that could fail a Physical Education course. Well...

Yeah, he forgot Jaune. But he was getting better!

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen! This is a fairly straightforward class, today, in that, the moment you reach the end of the obstacle course, you are free to go!" Oobleck informed them. "Allow me to give you a quick overview."

He points out a few hurdles, vertical posts, and bars. "You must run through the Irregular Terrain section first. This is going to be the easiest part. If you trip or hit something, you must go back to the beginning of the course. Good news! It isn't that long of a walk."

He then points to a nearly vertical wall with some handholds. "Then, there's the Sheer Wall section. Just climb up the wall and over the other side. If you slip and fall, you must go back to the beginning of the section."

Then, to the series of beams on the path Pyrrha had mentioned. "Then, there's the Ascending Pathway. Thank you for naming it, Miss Nikos, you have no idea how much that vexed me. You must jump from beam to beam until you clear the wall at the end of the path. Should you fall, you must go back to the beginning of the section."

After that, another series of beams alternating between high and low. "Then, there's..."

"The thingy!" Lancaster shouts.

"The Thingy section! You must navigate through the beams by going over, through, or below them. Should you hit a beam, you must go back to the beginning of the section."

Almost done, Oobleck points to a single beam a good distance from the ground. "The High Line section! You must make your way from one end of the beam to the other. Should you fall-"

"You must go back to the beginning of the section, yeah, yeah, yeah. Are we done?" Emerald asked, tired of this already, despite having not even started.

"We are at the last part, Miss Sustrai!" He points to a series of drones standing in array at the end of the course. "When you reach that section, you are allowed to use your weapons, but not your Semblance, to defeat the drones. Once someone enters this section, no one else can enter until they either complete the section or are struck by a drone, in which case, they must go back to the beginning of the **course**. Understood?"

The group all nodded in the affirmative. "How many drones?" Emerald asked.

"Twenty. And by the way, just to be fair, the metal has been depolarized so that Miss Nikos does not have an unfair advantage, and Mister Maddox's Five Gates are currently locked down so that he has none, either. Could you confirm that for me, Mister Maddox?"

Asher raised his right hand, but the strange, claw-like gauntlet made a low, hollow * _plink*._

"Very well! No handicaps! You may begin in five..."

Jaune swallowed a lump he didn't even know he had in his throat, and thought back ruefully to the fact that he just ate a shit ton of bacon.

"Four..."

Lancaster's ears folded, the fox Faunus growling with the determination to not be the class fuckup.

"Three..."

Emerald cracked a small, almost imperceptible grin as she realized how easy it would be to gimp the competition.

"Two..."

Pyrrha checked her ponytail, making sure it wouldn't come loose and cause her hair to get caught on something.

"One..."

"GO SAYS ME!" Lancaster shouted, running ahead of the others and straight-up barreling head-first into an Aura disruption field. "Ow, fucking shit!"

Oobleck sighed, and waited for Lancaster to rejoin the rest of the students. "Does anyone else wish to test the Aura disruption field?"

Everyone shook their heads.

"Then go."

The field visibly discharged. Maddox and Pyrrha shot forward like a pair of sprinters, with the lanky male clearing the first hurdle a mere fraction of a second after her. Emerald was right behind them, followed by Zebulon, then exchange students Sage and Scarlet, then Jaune, then Lancaster. Lancaster tripped over a hurdle, and was forced to restart. Jaune knocked his head against a bar towards the end of the course, forcing him to do likewise. Everyone else proceeded to the wall without incident. It took Lancaster another two tries to clear the hurtle, while Jaune managed to avoid getting barred in the face. The order headed to the wall was Maddox, Pyrrha, Scarlet, Emerald, Zebulon, Sage, Jaune, and Lancaster.

The wall was a different matter. Sage fell once almost immediately after getting on, while Scarlet's acrophobia manifested in him trying to hitch a ride on his partner's back. For a man with a flight Semblance, that was pretty damned embarrassing. Mark Nutt would be so ashamed of him. Emerald managed to clamber to the lead-not so unintentionally kicking Lancaster's fingers to drop him to the floor-with Pyrrha not far behind, while Maddox's foot accidentally caught Zebulon in the face, causing him to lose his grip. Jaune made it almost completely up the wall before falling down. By the time he was going back up, Lancaster had already passed him - he damn well knew how to climb, he grew up in the woods, after all . This left the order at Emerald, Pyrrha, Maddox, Zebulon, Sage, Lancaster, Scarlet, and Jaune.

Then, the pathway.

Surprisingly, it was Scarlet who cleared it first, as even Pyrrha tripped over one of the rungs due to a slightly miscalculated leap. Zebulon nonchalantly hopped from beam to beam, whistling Tchaikovsky's '1812' all the way. Emerald managed to make it after him, only to slip right at the end and hit the low wall. Despite her protests, she was forced to restart. Maddox managed to make it on the first try, albeit much more slowly than the others, and, perhaps out of pity, caught Jaune to keep him from falling forward over the bar they had both landed on. Jaune still fell short of the next one, but hey, Maddox's Gate of Blessings would have an extra charge next time he needed it. Pyrrha's face became stern as she focused all her attentions on the beams, and managed to power through without so much as breaking her stride. Emerald's second run also went better, with Lancaster managing to keep neck and neck with her, despite having fallen twice already. Sage had slowly but surely made it through on his first try, and Jaune managed to clear it after three very, very grueling landings, including one directly on his groin. The order heading past the halfway point was Scarlet, Zebulon, Maddox, Pyrrha, Lancaster, Emerald, Sage, and Jaune.

The... Thingy was not too terrible. While Pyrrha dove, slid, and hopped through the gaps in the middle beams, Maddox simply clambered up and ran across the top, while Scarlet and Emerald rolled underneath. Jaune attempted to mime Pyrrha, only to trip and hit his head again. Pyrrha saw this, and winced, leading Maddox to pat her shoulder in sympathy before they moved on. Zebulon had similar luck to Jaune, only he hit two rungs, due to trying the top route, while Lancaster and Sage rolled, as well. This left the order at Pyrrha, Maddox, Scarlet, Emerald, Lancaster, Sage, Jaune, and Zebulon.

The High Line was ridiculously easy, in Pyrrha's eyes. She simply went arm-over-arm, leaving her to totally-not-cockily check her pulse while Maddox made a show of trying to tightrope-walk across the bar. He nearly fell, but caught himself with one arm. Still, his cockiness cost him, as Lancaster of all people had shimmied past him like the world's most socially inept caterpillar. Emerald did a similar routine to Maddox, only more successfully, while Scarlet's imitation led to him failing miserably. Sage just proceeded as Pyrrha had, with Jaune slowly bringing up the rear. By the time he had got to the end, Zebulon got tired of being stuck behind him and swung over, shimmying over him. The order going into the final obstacle was Pyrrha, Lancaster, Maddox, Emerald, Sage, Scarlet, Zebulon, and Jaune.

The group had all stopped, ready to bound in as soon as Pyrrha finished her business with the drones.

"Miss Nikos, are you ready?" Oobleck asked.

"Yes, Professor," she replied, rolling her shoulders in anticipation.

"Then let's begin."

The drones' single eyes all glowed a bright blue, as they locked on to the Mistralian, and began moving forward.

She simply threw Akoúo̱ first, the shield bouncing between drones like a pinball as she shifted Miló into rifle form and bounced a few shots off of it. This little dalliance only took out five drones, but stunned the majority of the survivors. Acting quickly, she withdrew her shield and shifted her weapon into javelin form, lobbing it at the nearest drone and rushing forward, shifting to rifle again and using the recoil to withdraw the weapon from the drone's chest.

Maddox whistled in amazement and rolled his eyes, then awkwardly looked over at Jaune, who had a new set of welts on his head from the collisions he endured in class. "She's good," he said.

"The best, I'd bet," Jaune replied, almost as if he were speaking of an elder sister, or a trusted friend.

"Not inclined to disagree with you there..." Jaune either didn't notice the slight pink on his cheeks, or didn't care.

"We'll see," Zebulon muttered, checking Minus's chamber.

Pyrrha, in the meantime, had switched her weapon to sword form, blocking one of the drone's attempts at a slash to the leg, and countering it with a neat decapitation. She switched her weapon to rifle again, holding it at the hip as she rapidly gunned down three more, before shifting her weapon to javelin again and firing it out of her hand and through another drone's head, leaving nine.

Lancaster growled again, bearing his elongated canines. "I'm next."

"Mate whoever goes first gets it next. You don't just call dibs," Scarlet informed him.

"Are you suggesting that I help you breathe?"

"I suggest you say no and move on," Zebulon informed Scarlet, sighing at his brother's jealous anger.

"... okay then!" The transfer said, raising his hands and stepping away from Lancaster.

Pyrrha retrieved her spear and shifted it back to sword form, raising her shield to block a pair of drone's overhead swipes, pushing them back with a thrust, before deftly weaving between them and leaving deep gashes in their torsos. Once again readying the rifle, she fired over the top of her shield at another drone attempting to strike. She swung about, the barrel of the gun catching a drone's head, which she stepped on with one of her heels.

Maddox looked extremely uncomfortable right about now, as did Lancaster, whose discomfort was more of an anxious variety.

Pyrrha finished the last of the drones, save for one, with the rifle, before shifting it again to javelin form. A drone approached her from behind, and she nonchalantly shoved the butt of the weapon into its face, and fired it, causing the blast to leave a nice hole in the drone's head, and the javelin stuck into the floor.

"Finished," she said.

Oobleck nodded in approval, while Maddox tried to play off his sudden bout of awkwardness.

They didn't have to wait long to get back into it.

"THEN LET ME AT IT!" Lancaster shouted, flicking a lever on the side of his backpack, Magni deploying in front of him with all four barrels facing the fighting floor. The drones' built-in nanoreconstructors reassembled them, as Pyrrha grabbed her spear and left the field, but stopped at the edge. She'd wait for Jaune, make sure he made it.

The drones all turned to face him.

"Hello, BOYS!" He shouted, as he stepped over the threshold... and fired.

The blue bolts slammed with loud blasts into the drones and the floor around them, kicking up large clouds of dust and nanomachines. Lancaster may not be the best fighter in the world, but if you had a big-ass four barreled laser cannon with a low-stability, high-intensity refractor array, you didn't need to be. The first salvo of four shots alone took out eight of the drones, and the second flattened 6 more.

Then they were way too close. And although Lancaster wasn't the best fighter, that didn't mean he couldn't fight. He dove under one of the drone's swings, grabbing a shortsword from a destroyed drone. It would do.

One drone attempted to stab the faunus, who rolled out of the way and slashed its ankle, dropping it to the floor, where he buried the blade in its head. He grabbed the drone's blade from its side, and chunked it at another, the blade neatly cutting deep into the drone's head and sending it back.

Unfortunately, he neglected to note the one that was about to hit him in the back.

"Bro!" Zebulon shouted, a moment to late as the sword slammed into Lancaster's shoulder, making a neat cut in his blank white Aura.

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!"

* * *

The final section had gone well, after that. Zebulon managed to put up a good showing, elegantly weaving through the crowd of drones and firing his Dust Revolver/Fighting Knife hybrid. A few of the drones had even felled each other in their attempts to hit the smaller hunter.

Scarlet had played to a similar style. With a battle cry of "MARK NUTT!", he dashed into the drones, swiping his cutlass like a man possessed. One drone foolishly walked into the barrel of his pistol, while he managed to use the grappling hook attachment to grab one unfortunate machine and swinging it like a flail at the others. He ended up getting glanced by another drone, but he passed the second attempt.

Sage? Sage is a bit character with a BFS, how do you think he did? He went full Cloud on the drones without breaking a sweat.

Emerald? Everyone assumed Emerald had destroyed the drones in a show of elegance and finesse, when, in reality, she used her Illusion Semblance to give everyone that impression while she nonchalantly jumped from drone to drone, performing decapitation after decapitation with all the patience of a fanfiction writer on a deadline. She huffed in irritation as she walked off the field.

Then... then there was Maddox.

Maddox's Five Gates, you see, are not a weapon, his weapon is the gauntlet on his hand. The Five Gates are manifestations of his Aura, each with different properties, in the form of transparent, colored shields, each called forth with a finger. With a flex of his index finger, he summoned a red gate- The Gate of Penance, and simply threw it around the field like a buzzsaw, destroying all but a couple of lucky drones, which he dispatched with a green gate called forward from his ring finger- The Gate of Misery, and crushed underneath the weight of the now-solid Aura shield. Maddox, having finished his business, wiped his hands, and walked out of the arena, leaving Scarlet to prepare to attack again.

The group all stared at him, confused as to what just happened, save for Pyrrha and Jaune, because this is a fanfiction, and when you've been in as many fanfics as these two, you've seen some crazy shit.

"I think you might have broken a wall," Zebulon informed his taller compatriot.

"Eh. I'm just tired of waiting," Maddox replied, although it was less of him being tired, and more of him wanting to try and interact with someone. "Forget the wall."

The narrator ignores his rude dismissal of the God of this story and moves on to Jaune.

This was the moment Jaune's training was leading up to- well, not quite THE moment, but it was ONE moment where his training would be put to the test. Once Lancaster and Scarlet finished their reattempts and left, leaving only him, Maddox, Oobleck, and Pyrrha in the room, he took a deep breath...

And stepped into the arena.

* * *

Blake sat on her bed, reading her latest issue of smut-er, 'literature', waiting for the rest of her team to return. Ruby had already gushed over her glasses for a while, leaving the dark-haired cat faunus to try and play it off like it was just a joke, or some such. She certainly wasn't trying to impress anyone, no sir! Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Blake would never attempt to cater to someone else's desires, no way, Jose. And certainly not just to help try and woo Ya-

Weiss entered the room, her class having just let out, and let out a long, frustrated groan as she sat on her own bed.

"What's eating you?" Blake asked, looking up from her book.

"Nora."

"Sounds like something she would do..." Blake mused, looking back down. "But in all seriousness, what did she do?"

"She's about as dense as a brick wall! Ren and I had to literally scream the answers at her during class for her to catch on that it wasn't 'just a prank, bro!' or some other inane nonsense." Weiss fell on her back, arms spread wide, and groaned again. "Why was I born sane, and given unto a bunch of lunatics?" she cried, internally crying out for the god of Remnant to strike her dead.

"Destiny? Fate? The cruel and fleeting whims of the gods?" Blake replied. "Who knows? Especially with Nora."

Weiss spent a few moments thinking, before something she saw when she walked in came back to mind. The white-haired huntress sat back up, and looked over at Blake, one eyebrow suddenly shooting up in confusion.

"Blake?"

"Yes, Ice Queen?"

"You bought glasses?"

Blake lowered her book, looking over at the heiress from behind her frames. "Yes. Is that a problem?"

"No... but why?"

"Sun said I looked like a nerd with all of my books and such, and figured the glasses would complete the image. So, I intended to make a joke out of it," Blake lied.

"Ah. I see." Weiss never was good at picking up on subtle signals.

* * *

One try.

It had only taken one try.

If Jaune Arc didn't believe in Oum before, he certainly did now. He had to run up to Oobleck and make sure he had turned the robots on, and that it wasn't some sort of fluke, before he was convinced that it happened. He looked over at the students who had bothered to stay and watch him.

Pyrrha's smile was downright radiant, her laughter echoing throughout the arena as she tried to keep from jumping up and down with joy. Maddox, having less investment in the blonde, simply nodded his head.

"Congratulations, blondie," he said, giving him a thumbs up with his non-gloved hand. "That was pretty good."

"You were amazing!" Pyrrha shouted, running up to her partner and grabbing his hands. "That was perfect! You did everything I taught you, and you did it perfectly!"

Jaune's cheeks tinted red, and he looked down at the floor. "Well... uh... yeah, I guess so."

While the two gushed over each other, something clicked inside Maddox's head. He didn't know exactly what it was, but it only manifested when he watched the two teammates interact- which he hadn't seen much of, considering his limited interactions with JNPR. But, whatever it was, he didn't like it very much. It was one of those awkward, creeping feelings you get in your stomach when something really doesn't sit right with you, but you don't want to say anything.

Was it... nah, that couldn't be it.

* * *

 **One of you followers come to Louisiana and punch me in the face every time I think of Arkos when I should be writing the rest of this story.** **As penance, the next chapter will be completely consistent of Pyrrha turning that smile upside down due to video games. Yeah, that seems fair. That, and a hungover Yang seeing Blake's specs.**

 **The Raine brothers' weapons are named Magni and Minus, derivatives of the Latin Modifiers 'Major' and 'Minor'. The latter is pronounced as the Latin 'Mee-noos', not 'My-nus'. Magni is based on the Arc Trooper's Reciprocating Quad Blaster from the Clone Wars animation.**

 **UPDATE 10/17 This story is probably not going to get updated any time soon. My father is missing and no one can get in contact with him. Just hang tight while I try and figure this out.**


	7. Eyes on the Prize

Oh, What a Spectacle!

Chapter 7

Eyes on the Prize

Saturday Morning had come, which meant three things for our intrepid band of heroes. One- no more classes. Two- no travel restrictions for the day. Three- Game Night.

And Yang Xiao Long, hungover as she was, took game night very, very seriously. She had neglected to tell her team that she was busy tearing up instead of returning to the dorm immediately, thus she had to sneak in late in order to avoid raising suspicion. She had just barely managed it. Whatever Gods may have seen fit to guide her, she would find them and kiss their feet.

She had drifted into sleep quite easily. The blonde was snoring loudly, a trickle of drool from the corner of her mouth wetting the pillow under her head, which she was clutching tight enough to bust. She was a very huggy person, when she got tired. Or drunk. Or both.

Then...

* _BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BE- **PTOOM** * _

With the grace and agility of a drunken tortoise trying to do the tango on a pair of stilts, Yang fell to the floor going after Ember Celica, slapping the weapon sloppily over her right hand, and blowing a chunk of the cabinet away with the alarm clock.

Fuck the alarm clock. Fuck it.

Once again, she had awakened the rest of RWBY with her antics, with Weiss going into her usual hysterics about Yang nearly killing someone, and Blake responding with frustration that she was going to have to buy yet ANOTHER alarm clock. Frankly, the fact that Ruby only sat up and yawned spoke volumes as to how batshit-crazy a life she lead up to this point.

"Yang! One of these days you are going to miss the clock and shoot me! Or Blake!"

"I'm certain that will only happen once she's already drained all of my lien by destroying more of these clocks. Yang, there is a snooze button," Blake informed her.

"Ish too far away..." Yang muttered, burying her face in the pillow. "Tdysh gm nght, hmh?"

"What?" Blake asked.

Yang lifted her head. "Today's game night, huh?"

"Yes. We're meeting in JNPR's dorm tonight."

"Yaaaay..." Yang muttered. "We go' Thunderaid?"

"Yes, why?" Blake asked.

"Just for breakfasht."

Blake immediately realized she was hung over, while the team's precious muffin child remained blissfully unaware of the exact nature of Yang's groggy state. With a sigh, Blake got up and moved to the minikitchen. "What kind of cereal do you want, Yang?"

"Pumpkin Petesh, duh."

"Alright."

* * *

Pyrrha's pencil broke.

The lead went spilling off the side of the bed as she jerked a little too hard on the angle of a shoulder. She sighed, putting it to the side and grabbing another one from the small holster on her sketchbook, and continuing where she left off. The rest of the team was still sleeping, but they would be awake any minute now. She had skipped her run, instead opting for a little bit of weight and endurance training. She was wearing a white tee and the same boy shorts she always wore to exercise. Ren, unusually, had been up before her today, which gave her a bit of a fright.

What she didn't know- and what she should have known, that so long as there was a Dance Drive Remix on campus, and it was Game Night, Lie Ren required no such trivialities as food, drink, or sleep. Those were for the weak. He was a machine, and he had only one directive- outdance the shit out of anyone who dared to enter the hallowed halls of Beacon Academy.

Said boy in pink looked over at her from his place on the bed closest to the window, watching his teammate doing her art.

Her Scroll vibrated, and she took the device from her pocket, opening up the Messenger application. The message was from Ren.

 _U drawing?_

She put her pencil at her side for the moment and moved to reply.

 _yep._

 _what u drawing?_

 _nora_ , she replied.

 _nora doing what?_

 _being nora_

 _since when did you become so vague?_

 _since you started being so nosy_

 _ouch. im offended._

 _sorry ^-^_

The girl returned to her drawing, finishing filling out Nora's figure before moving on to the eyes and smile. Before she could continue, the Scroll vibrated again. She looked up at Ren, who shrugged. 'Not me,' he mouthed.

Pyrrha shook her head, and checked. Turns out, it was Blake, who rarely, if ever, so much as spoke to her outside of the cafeteria. None of RWBY were usually up this early, even on weekends...

bumblekitteh: Hey, _do you have some PP? We're out. ~_~_

thisisMistral: PP?

bumblekitteh: Pumpkin Pete's.

thisisMistral: blake that stuff is terrible for you, and ive told you all that multiple times.

bumblekitteh: look, p-swizzle, I don't tell you how to live your life... well, your non-love life, anyway. besides, its for Yang. She's hungover AF. ;-;

thisisMistral: =_= ill be right over. got thunderaid?

bumblekitteh: got you covered, bb. ;3

Pyrrha immediately jumped out of bed and made straight for the cabinets. Ren looked confused, following after his teammate.

"What's going on?" he asked quietly.

"Yang has a hangover AGAIN, and they need cereal for the hangover cure," Pyrrha replied. Ever since JNPR had gotten close to RWBY, she had come to know Yang quite well- they were both their team's heavy lifters, and both had similar tastes in music (EDM and rap, although Pyrrha's personal preferences tended to the former) and literature (comic books and action novels). However, Pyrrha was an avowed teetotaler with a Spartan health regimen and a downright nun-esque private life, while Yang cared little for such things, preferring to enjoy life and everything it had to offer- her code for taking her fake ID and getting plastered at Also a Gun in full view of the populace at large. Considering Pyrrha and Nora were likely the only ones that could physically restrain Yang when she was drunk or angry, which often coincided, and that Pyrrha was considerably less likely to join in said drunken antics than Nora, Pyrrha Nikos had yet one more job added to her daily responsibilities- Yang's one woman restraining bolt.

And, if Weiss was to believed, she was damned good at it. Then again, if you could suplex Yang Xiao Long through a wooden table, you were pretty badass.

"Need me to come with you?" Ren asked.

"No, but thank you. Yang's my friend, this is the least I can do for her."

Ren never did understand where Pyrrha got off on being everyone's best friend and doormat. Pyrrha grabbed a box of the cereal, feeling very self-conscious, and walked out of the minikitchen, through the bed area, and out the door.

* * *

* _knock knock knock*_

"Who is it?" Weiss asked.

 _"It's Pyrrha."_

Weiss opened the door for her, the redhead stepping through the portal, cereal in hand. "Good morning."

"It's not good, not good at all..." Weiss grumbled, facepalming.

Pyrrha's eyes were immediately drawn to the smoking remains of the alarm clock. A large spread of bullet holes in the china cabinet it sat on also had small wisps of smoke rising from them, and one hole was dangerously close to the bottom bunk on the other side of the room.

"What in the _hell_ did she do this time?" Pyrrha asked, her voice lowered at a dangerous mezzo-soprano.

"She blew up the alarm clock again."

"Again!?" Pyrrha asked, surprised. She had done it before?

"This is the seventh or eighth one," Ruby informed her, sitting on her bunk and rocking side to side. "She doesn't like having to get up and find the snooze button."

"So she blows it up?"

"Only when sufficiently tired or hungover," Weiss replied.

As if this school couldn't get any weirder, Pyrrha could add 'sociopathic clock-destroyers' to the list of people accepted to Beacon Academy. Oh, the humanity. "Where's Yang?"

"The minikitchen."

Pyrrha huffed, walking to said cutout room, to find Yang leaning on a counter, talking to Blake.

"- and then I said, 'well, what the fuck do I look like? A-"

"Drunken slob," Blake finished, looking over at Blake. "Morning."

"Hello again, Blake."

Yang looked over at the redhead, and grinned a shit-eating, audacious grin. "Yo, P-Money! Has our favorite noodle finally become a man? Is there a mini-Jaune on the way?"

"If I had so much as held his hand, Nora would have told you already." Pyrrha tried not to smile at the blonde's antics, tossing her the box of cereal. "You really need to stop this, Yang. You should be setting a better example for Ruby."

Yang rolled her eyes. "Ruby, rule number one?"

"We don't talk about Fight-" Ruby began in the other room, only for Yang to interrupt her.

"No, the OTHER rule number one!"

"Don't do anything you wouldn't do!"

"Rule number two?"

"Don't do anything you WOULD do, either!"

Yang looked back at Pyrrha, who gave a resigned sigh. "See?" Yang informed her, "pro-tier older sister. Hey, do you have any siblings?"

"Two brothers, two sisters," Pyrrha replied. "All older. Oldest two are twins."

"Funny, I pegged you as an only child. I guess you'll have to introduce us someday."

* * *

Heracles Nikos coughed once. He looked up from his place on the front porch of his home, not noticing anything unusual. With a shrug, he went back to trying to drown out the sounds of the latest family gathering in the house.

* * *

Pyrrha looked visibly uncomfortable, which Blake did not fail to notice.

"Alright, Pyrrha, I think we're good, you can go back to your dorm," Blake informed her.

"Yeah... hope you get to feeling better, Yang." Pyrrha walked back into the bedroom area, bidding the rest of RWBY adieu, and heading back to JNPR's dorm.

* * *

By the time she returned to her dorm, the rest of JNPR was up and about, with Jaune already setting up the various game systems for the night. The teams planned to meet up around lunch, go out to eat, and come back for the games. Hopefully, it would go according to plan, but knowing her classmates, that was very unlikely.

"So, what is on the itinerary, Jaune?" Ren asked, watching the blonde fooling with the wires for two Guitar Warrior controllers.

"You know, GW, Alley Fighter, Ultimate Brawl, the usual kind of thing," he replied.

"Oh, thank goodness! I thought we would have to play the dancing game again," Pyrrha said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Bad move

Ren's eyebrow twitched, his eyes narrowing at the warrior as he lowered his latest recipe book. "Is there something wrong with, quote, 'the dancing game', Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha locked eyes with her teammate, who looked like he would snap at any moment. She threw her hands up, frantically waving away her earlier statement. "Uh, of course not! I-I loved the dancing game!"

"Of course you did, we all do." Ren did not understand where his teammate got the absolutely absurd and downright blasphemous idea that they would not be playing the dancing game. She must have gone mad! Silly, silly Pyrrha.

Jaune wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, glad that he hadn't been the one to push that particular button this week. Unfortunately, in his foolish hubris, he made the fatal mistake of opening his mouth. "Okay, so I guess that means DDR is on the table..."

"Was it ever not?" Ren asked, his attention now focused on the blonde, and it was at that moment that Jaune Ducoté Narcisse Valjean Arc knew he had fucked up. Praise be to Oum, his figurative, non-physical ass was taken from the fire by a cry of "REEEEEEEEEEN!" from the minikitchen.

Ren disengaged, looking over at Nora. "What is it?"

"What did you do with the leftovers!?"

"You ate them all for breakfast, Nora. Do you not remember?"

"No!" Ren was a fool, Nora told herself, for thinking that enough of her mental faculties were not occupied by thoughts of shipping, downright _lewd_ bedroom fantasies involving him, herself, and possibly a lot of macaroni and cheese, destroying Grimm and/or public and/or private property, or WHAT IN THE GREAT SACRED AND HOLY NAME OF OUM HIMSELF A FUCKING SLOTH SOUNDED LIKE to worry about such silly things as remembering. Yes, Ren was truly a fool. A downright sexy, tantalizing fool, but nonetheless, a fool.

"Well, you did. Along with this week's supply of pancakes. And Pyrrha's salads. And Jaune's entire supply of candy."

"WHAT!?" Jaune shouted, dropping the wires he was hooking in, alarmed by this sudden revelation. "Even the taffy!?"

"Yes, Jaune, even the taffy. I am sorry for your loss." To be fair, Ren would probably have eaten that taffy, too. Jaune's family sent him the nicest care packages full of sweets and such. When they weren't making fun of his mom and sister's pet names for him, they were eating his food. That's what friends are for, right?

Jaune's face went blank as he attempted to comprehend the sudden lack of sugary sweets in his life at this moment in time, while Pyrrha simply ruminated on the fact that, not only did Nora eat her salad, but apparently enjoyed it enough to eat the other ones she had made.

Nora's stomach growled with the volume of a roll of thunder, drawing all the eyes in the room to her.

"You're STILL hungry!?" Pyrrha asked, her eyes as wide as saucers.

"... Maybe..."

Ren, in his infinite patience (in matters not related to dancing), simply smiled knowingly. "You all go ahead and get ready for the day, I'll fix something up immediately."

* * *

"Ah... sweet relief..."

Yang kicked back in her chair in the minikitchen, waiting for her turn to get dressed for the day, bowl of Xiao-Long patented Hangover Cure now cleared from the table. Ruby had donned a corgi t-shirt and loose-fitting windpants, with a pair of sneakers Yang bought her for her 13th birthday that somehow still fit. Weiss wore a polo with khakis and formal leather shoes, and Blake... well, Blake wasn't finished. She normally went about in her usual outfit- hell, so did the rest of them, come to think of it. Why did they change?

Yang shrugged, and went back to ruminating on other things.

Meanwhile, Blake looked herself in the mirror of their bathroom. The red-on-black flannel shirt she was wearing was... certainly unusual, but it was comfortable-considering Ren's love of dancing games, freedom of movement would be paramount. To that end, she donned a pair of black jeans to complement her shirt and her bow. However, there was still one thing missing.

She awkwardly adjusted the glasses on the bridge of her nose. Hopefully, at the very least, Yang would notice the change. Blake was never good at directly expressing herself to people, but she figured that, maybe, this would somewhat alleviate her anxiety regarding the blonde.

With a deep breath, and a nervous shudder, she stepped out into the room. "Your turn, Yang."

The blonde brawler looked out of the corner of her eye, a slight pink creeping up her cheeks. "New glasses?"

"I figured I would join in the fun. I got them yesterday."

"Nice... I'mma go change. Like, right now!" With that, Yang darted into the restroom, leaving the rest of RWBY a bit confused, save for the 'R', who was her ever-bubbling, joyous self. The mental gears in her teeny-tiny head were a-spinning like corgis on a hamster wheel as she thought, and schemed, and wondered.

"So now it's Weiss' turn!" she suddenly exclaimed, adjusting her glasses to accentuate her point. "You're the only member of Team RWBY who doesn't have a pair!"

"Ruby does have a point, you'll look quite out of place, now..." Blake opined, a cat-like grin gracing her features.

"There is nothing wrong with a bit of contrast!" Weiss countered, folding her arms. "Besides, I see no purpose in wearing glasses that serve no practical function. It's a waste of money."

"But you said you associate glasses with sophistication, intellect, and class..." Ruby replied, confused. Did Weiss not like her glasses? Oh, no! That would suck! She needed to take her glasses and break them, vaporize them, make them a burnt offering to the gods!

Weiss looked up and away, rolling her eyes. "I just don't see a need for any. That's all."

Phew, for a second there Ruby was worried about becoming a heretic! "So, when are we headed to the mall?"

"Probably as soon as Yang and JNPR are ready," Blake replied, looking at the bathroom door as she said so. "What's taking her so long, anyway?"

As if she had heard that, Yang threw open the door, revealing her outfit to everyone. A pair of short denim shorts, a tied-off purple-and-yellow button up, and a white tee shirt that preserved a modicum of modesty were the order of the day, with her glasses resting high on the bridge of her nose. "Ready to roll!"

* * *

JNPR was waiting for them, all in various states of formal dress, outside of the main dormitory building. Nora's nigh-legendary hot pink 'Boop!' shirt shone like a second sun in the morning light, while Ren wore a simpler dark green long-sleeve shirt with his jeans. Jaune was wearing a light vest and blue-on-white Achieve Men shirt, while Pyrrha looked completely out of her element in a muscle tee for some exercise equipment company, and a pair of workout pants.

"Do you own no other kinds of clothes than athletic wear?" Weiss asked. "If you need help picking something out..."

Pyrrha knew better than to wear her good outfits to Game Night if Ren was in any way involved. Let Weiss try and fail to learn her lesson again. "I'm perfectly fine in what I'm wearing."

"So, what's on the agenda?" Blake asked, throwing an awkward glance at Yang, who had been doing the same since they got dressed.

"Okay! So, first, we're gonna do some shopping. I have to go pick up something, so I'll be over in..." Jaune gave a vague gesture of his hands to the right. "This area. You guys can do whatever, then we can hit the food court for lunch and hang out for a while. Then we'll finish up, get some snacks for tonight, and head back to Beacon. Simple, right?"

Knowing them, there was likely going to be something that exploded in the meantime, but, it couldn't be helped. They all gave varying responses that summed up to 'okay', and the group split for the moment, leaving Jaune to focus on his mission, and his alone. This was the moment of truth, the moment where- despite the injuries that had yet to completely finish healing- his confidence would be made or broken. Right now...

He had. To get. The glasses.

"Hey, Jaune!"

Jaune immediately whipped around to find Asher Maddox awkwardly standing behind him. The black-haired student was, if Jaune's memory served him right, their neighbor in the dormitories. He had recently come by the other day to talk to Pyrrha, according to Ren, but that was during the time they were doing their daily training, so he supposed that it was simply a coincidence.

"Oh, hey!" Jaune greeted him.

"What's up?"

"About to do some shopping, you?"

"Yeah, same here... Uh... Look... would you happen to know what, uh... um..."

Jaune raised an eyebrow, a mix of confusion and amusement on his features as the taller trainee fumbled over his words.

"Uh... do you know... Shit, nevermind! Have a good day!" With that, Maddox marched off as quickly as he came, confusing both Jaune and the gods of the universe immensely as his frustration boiled over. After giving it a few minutes of thought, Jaune shrugged, and made his way to the glasses store.

 **In today's headcanon news, Ren enjoys dancing a bit TOO much, Yang is very responsibly irresponsible, Blake is that emoji spam girl, and Pyrrha is your designated driver.**


End file.
